When I began writing this review one of my favorite Nancy Wilson
recordings, How Glad I Am, was playing in the background. The record perfectly
captures my feelings concerning Eric Jerome Dickey's new novel, Drive Me Crazy.
In this novel Dickey returns to the same fertile ground that produced Thieves
Paradise. Although Drive Me Crazy does not have the same hard edge grittiness
that Thieves Paradise possesses, it has enough to give the story a spicy flavor
that I found enticing. Nancy is not the only one in the room singing about being
glad. After reading Drive Me Crazy, I'm feeling kinda glad myself.

Driver, a 40 year old convicted felon on parole, finds himself in one hell of
a predicament. Six months ago, his prospects were dim, to say the least. No one
had been willing to have an ex con on their payroll. Driver had been scraping by
until he met Lisa. Lisa, an ex-policewoman with serious connections, has an
affair with Driver and asks him to kill her husband. Lisa gives Driver a down
payment for the contract hit. Later he reneges on the deal. Instead of killing
him, Driver befriends Lisa's husband, Wolf, and starts working for Wolf at his
limousine company as a driver. Now six months later, Lisa gives Driver an
ultimatum, Driver has three days to pay back the money she gave him for the now
defunct Wolf assassination--that is if Driver likes inhaling and exhaling air
without dirt getting in the way.

With Drive Me Crazy, Dickey is back on track. When Dickey's novel Thieves
Paradise hit the street, I was one happy soul. The novel was a true departure
from Dickey's other novels and he did a brilliant job with it. Just when I
thought Dickey had turned a corner and I was going to get more novels in the
Thieves Paradise vein, he hit me with the novel The Other Woman. That book
worked my nerves. Let me just say that I was less than pleased with it and leave
it at that.

I was somewhat leery when it came to reading Drive Me Crazy. I was not in the
mood for another book like The Other Woman. I knew I was going to read Drive Me
Crazy because, well, even with one misstep, Dickey is still my boy. I got the
book, read the book flap and could hardly contain my excitement. Ex con,
contract hit, threat of physical violence, death, hell, just my cup of tea.
Drive Me Crazy lived up to the hype.

Dickey does a good job assembling his cast of characters in Drive Me Crazy.
Dickey's previous work had always contained excellent character development and
dialogue. Driver is one of his best creations. Driver, the protagonist, narrates
the novel with a captivating voice. This is Driver's story and he never allowed
me to forget it. Driver is a well rounded character with positive attributes as
well as having a few issues. He is surrounded by other interesting characters:
Lisa, a nut case that I could not help but to pity; Wolf, a white man I could
have slapped the hell out of; and Rufus, Driver's albino brother whose life
could be a separate novel in itself.

Drive Me Crazy's largest and most attractive asset is Dickey's growing skill
as a writer. Dickey brings another dimension to the story by incorporating a
series of flashbacks of Driver's early family life. The flashbacks serve two
purposes. One, Driver's childhood provides information I needed to understand
Driver. The fact that Driver's family life was painful and messy made the
flashbacks deliciously irresistible. Two, the flashbacks allowed Dickey to
control the pace of the story. The pacing of Drive Me Crazy accelerates or
crawls according to the bends and hills of the story, much like good sex. There
are not too many of today's authors who can properly incorporate flashbacks in a
story without destroying it. Dickey worked the flashbacks like a champ.

Drive Me Crazy is an invigorating, hard to put down read, simply one of the
best books of the year. Dickey is back in my good graces, hopefully for good.